M. Night Shyamalan explains why Glass ended the way it did

Glass is now in theaters, and it grossed $40.58 million over its 3-day opening weekend. It brought in Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy together as they confront each other for a final showdown. The film has been panned by critics, with audiences having a more positive reaction. The film’s ending is definitely a major motivator for whether or not one would enjoy the film, and director M. Night Shyamalan talks about its controversy and explains why he wanted to do it.

Major Spoilers Ahead

The ending of the film resulted in the deaths of Mr. Glass, David Dunn and Kevin Wendell Crumb. Personally, I felt Dunn’s death was a huge letdown. We had a big showdown between him and the Beast, and in the end, it was a henchman that killed him… thanks to a pothole filled with water.

The secret villain is an organization that has been around for thousands of years, removing those who believe that they are superheroes. You see, the world can’t know about superheroes because it will cause some sort of panic. In end the, their efforts were wasted since Mr. Glass tricked them by recording footage of the battle from surveillance cameras and leaking them online for everyone to see.

Shyamalan talks about the twist ending and how he had the idea in his head since doing Unbreakable.

“I did,” Shyamalan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t know if I could have the balls to do it. But I did. That was in my head and I kind of said, ‘Maybe we could do this at the end,’ and chuckled about it. Can you do that? I didn’t know whether I’d have the fortitude to keep going and do it, but I’m so glad that I did. Closure is important to me, as a narrator, as a storyteller. How do we get to a definitive end so that you understood someone had something to say specifically and not then continuing. It’s always been on my mind how to do this. Obviously, I’ve never done a sequel before and wanting to make sure it was from the right motivations, from the characters themselves and that world and keeping a certain level of purity about it. I think that the shelf life of the three movies will increase dramatically because of it.”

It’s no surprise that the critics weren’t fans of the film, but Shyamalan reveals that the reactions from the test screenings were very positive.

“The test screenings were really crazy. We did do them and they were crazy because audiences just went with us. They just were not polarized in any way by anything that we just mentioned. It was one of my highest testing movies ever. This thing we are talking about [the ending] was refreshing to them. That we were doing the opposite of everything. It was really contained and it was unusual and thought-provoking.”

With critics panning the film and audiences enjoying it, it then went onto the topic of the divide between the two groups. We’ve seen this with movies like Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the Ghostbusters reboot. Shyamalan isn’t too focused on discussing it.

“Definitely don’t want to comment on that [the reviews],” he said. “That’s not my purview. The less energy spent in that arena the better. All of it should go toward making the highest quality audience movies that I can possibly make. Really pushing cinema to tell accessible stories. That’s the balancing act I’m trying to study and learn over the years.”

The budget for Glass is just a mere $20 million, and the film has already grossed $40.58 million domestically. Yeah, the movie is definitely going to profit in the long run.